Chatham County, GA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Sec. 16-315, titled Sales from Non-Motored, Wheeled Vehicles, governs stationary selling from a cart, table on wheels, or similar non-motorized vehicle in the unincorporated county. It confines that kind of sale to the streets contiguous to and around the county's squares, parks, and recreation areas, and expressly bars sales from such vehicles on sidewalks along streets or within or around any park or square. A vendor selling this way is also made responsible for collecting all trash and materials customers discard within a 50-foot radius of the vehicle.

The cart itself has to be licensed under the county's peddler and licensing ordinance before it can operate, and Sec. 16-315 specifically blocks a transient merchant or transient peddler from getting that vehicle license until the cart is licensed the way the ordinance requires. This section carves non-motorized wheeled vehicles out of the county's booth-or-stand definition in Sec. 16-302(10), which otherwise would have required the Director of Building Safety and Regulatory Services' written permission for any stand on a public street. A motorized food truck is not a non-motorized wheeled vehicle under this article, so a truck-based vendor does not get the benefit of this carve-out and instead falls back on the general peddler booth and stand rules in Sec. 16-314.